Ayad Akhtar examines the soul of America through his own family's story in Homeland Elegies

Elizabeth McCracken’s fictional portrait of her own remarkable mother is warm, witty and wise

Booker winner Eleanor Catton’s new novel, Birnam Wood, is a moral thriller for our times

Yiyun Li’s new novel, The Book of Goose, is a beguiling tale of childhood imagination, hunger and memory

Zimbabwe's Petina Gappah casts new light on David Livingstone's search for the source of the Nile

Nothing is as it seems in Scottish novelist Graeme Macrae Burnet’s inventive, genre-defying fiction

World-renowned South African artist William Kentridge on his wide-ranging, politically engaged work

Kapka Kassabova on the untold stories of Bulgaria's haunted borderland

The tragic loss of a close friend became the impetus for Hua Hsu’s acclaimed memoir, Stay True

Amy Liptrot on how she forged a new story in the wild landscape of the Orkney Islands

From Kolkata to Mumbai, London to Berlin – Amit Chaudhuri’s fiction travels off the beaten path

Fran Lebowitz shares her observations on contemporary life with unfiltered wit and wisdom

Tracy K. Smith on life, death, poetry and outer space

Marie Kreutzer’s film Corsage is a fascinating portrait of a 19th-century icon, Empress Elisabeth of Austria

Cleopatra beyond the myth: Francine Prose revisits the life of Egypt’s legendary queen

A tribute to Salman Rushdie's 1992 surprise appearance in Canada

Pierre Jarawan probes Lebanon’s troubled past in his affecting new novel, Song for the Missing

Victorian virtuosity meets rock royalty in Nick Hornby’s new memoir, Dickens and Prince

Imani Perry on the remarkable life and legacy of Lorraine Hansberry, author of A Raisin in the Sun

Nick Drnaso captures modern anxieties with quiet brilliance in his acclaimed graphic novels